All of It
by Haunted Cottage
Summary: Privately, Martha wondered if rumors about ghosts were really true. Was he house bound, or could he just magically materialize in Philadelphia? It probably didn't matter.
1. Chapter 1

"_All love is unrequited. All of it." – J. Michael Straczynski, American producer and TV director_

The boy sat on the station wagon ramp, wedged between suitcases. He stared listlessly out the tailgate window. Maine dwindled behind him and when they crossed into Massachusetts he knew it was hopeless. Jonathan cried the rest of the way to the Boston airport. Too exhausted to even care about the new DC-9, or the drool forming at the side of his mouth, he was asleep before the pilot could invite him for a tour of the cockpit. No thanks, Carolyn smiled politely. As the plane lumbered to 30,000 feet, she lowered her head to the seat tray in front of her and sobbed. The plane bobbed through real thunder squalls all the way to Philadelphia.

It was 10 a.m.

"Let her sleep, dear," Emily Williams chided Candy 10 hours later. "You can tell her all about David Cassidy later." Candy rolled her eyes and headed for her brother's room. What kind of an idiot did her grandmother think she was?

Jonathan was actually in the attic, which was bigger and harbored more antique junk and trunks than Gull Cottage's Wheelhouse. His grandmother's maid kept it spotless, like everything else in the big house on Chestnut Hill. Only Grandma never came up here. He was halfway into a trunk of his dad's college stuff when Candy found him.

Capt. Gregg didn't hear Martha knock. She set the tea tray on Mrs. Muir's desk. "Tea or whiskey, Captain?" He raised his head from the binnacle. Neither of them made any further attempt at conversation. Martha stared at the unmade bed. She blushed as the Captain followed her gaze to the twisted sheets and pummeled pillows. "I think I'll turn in now. I'll get that in the morning."

Privately, she wondered if rumors about ghosts were really true. Was he house bound, or could he just magically materialize in Philadelphia? It probably didn't matter.


	2. Chapter 2

"I miss Captain Gregg."

Jonathan sat in the middle of the trunk, exhausted. He rubbed his eyes and stared at Candy. "There's nothing in here but sports stuff."

"Well, our real Dad wasn't a sea captain," Candy explained, her voice trembling. "What happened? Did they have another fight?"

"I dunno," Jonathan yawned. "I was asleep and it was dark outside and Mom told me to wake up 'cause we had to go to Philadelphia. I didn't see Captain Gregg 'cept when we got in the car. He put his hand on Mom's window but she pretended she didn't see."

Candy seated herself in the rocking chair Grandma used when they were babies. She hugged her knees to her chest. Tears flowed freely down her cheeks.

"Now it's like we've lost two Dads," she said plainly, sadly.

"I hate Mom," Jonathan replied as he threw his dad's tennis racquet across the attic. Outside, it began to rain.

Carolyn stirred in her childhood bed. Her back ached from the lumpy mattress. Heavy raindrops splattered against the window. Her eyes opened. Where the glint of the brassy telescope should be, there was only the dullness of 25-year-old dolls and faded high school banners.

Philadelphia. Suddenly, she remembered, and the knife in her heart twisted again. "Daniel," she silently cried. "How could you do this to us?"

Thunder rumbled, but it wasn't his. Carolyn sobbed into her pillow. Many times she'd cried herself to sleep in this very room – but that was over Bobby. She reached for the glass of water someone had accommodatingly left on her nightstand. Behind it, wedged tightly between pages 100 and 101 in Peyton Place, was the single Valium she'd stolen from her mother's medicine cabinet.

"After the first death, there is no other," wrote Dylan Thomas. He was wrong.

Maybe she should creep downstairs to use the kitchen phone. She could call collect. Her mother would never know. Maybe he would even answer, using Martha's voice. Maybe. But what would she say? What could she say? I thought you loved me? Who gave you the right to decide what's best for any of us? How could you do this to the children? I hate you. There's nothing noble about any of this. I love you. You've broken my heart. I'll never speak to you again. Who the hell do you think you are, anyway? I can't live without you. How could you do this to me – to us?

Carolyn sank softly back upon the twin mattress, suddenly inured to the thought of Capt. Daniel Gregg. "This is the other," she thought tranquilly. "The second one. The last."

One hundred years! Blast! For nigh 100 years he'd kept humans at bay, defending Gull Cottage against all comers, securing a safe berth for his immortal soul and steering a wide course around people. Until he allowed Carolyn Muir to sail straight into his harbor and tear apart his ship. With tears, blast it. A woman's tears. They'd been the downfall of many a poor seaman, but not Capt. Daniel Gregg. No woman ever got the best of his money, Gull Cottage or his heart, for that matter. Not while he was alive.

No, you fool, only after you died. Daniel Gregg lowered his clenched fist. He'd given his heart to Carolyn Muir, then tried to take it back. For all the right reasons, of course. Only she wouldn't let go. Surely, after she calmed down, she would understand he'd merely tried to do what was best for everyone – especially the children. In time, she would think him less a knave, perhaps, if she thought of him at all.

At least he had the satisfaction of knowing he'd stood by the right. Daniel Gregg squared his shoulders, like the sea captain he was, not the bloody damned poodle he'd become. He turned his stern visage, his magisterial glance upon the expansive sweep of the summer sea, the true keeper of his heart, the mistress of his virtue.

Thank God I'm already dead, he thought. His heart seemed achingly alive.


	3. Chapter 3

"You said what?"

The Captain tried to muster an aggrieved look, but Martha's wrath was greater than his feigned arrogance. He sank weakly into the kitchen chair, head in hands, defeated.

"Looks like the weight of the world rests squarely on your shoulders, Captain Gregg, and I'll be damned if you don't deserve every ton of it." Martha's pokerface showed little sign of emotion. "If I have to move back to Philadelphia because of your 19th-century sense of honor, I guarantee you'll die a second death – at my hands!"

Martha rose and retrieved the coffee pot from the old stove. Without asking, she poured them each another cup of rotgut, brewed to Carolyn's preferred strength.

She extinguished her cigarette in the ashtray and paused to light another. Smoking in the house seemed acceptable, with the children gone. She exhaled slowly, grateful for the angry relief nicotine afforded. "The Muirs placed all of their faith – and all of their future – in you, and you betrayed that trust as surely as Bobby Muir did."

"Yes, Bobby Muir." Daniel Gregg raised his head much faster than he'd lowered it. "Seems that's about the only topic you and Mrs. Muir didn't discuss in the last year. If she wouldn't talk about it, I'm not going to divulge much either except to say she loved him, he cheated on her, and then he died, tragically. Leaving her guilt-ridden. Worried the kids someday might blame her for not driving that night. "

Martha leaned forward.

"I warned Carolyn it was a mistake to let Jonathan bond with you so strongly. To allow Candy to view you as a confidante. You've left them bereft, too. A second father, gone – just like that. Only they knew this one, and loved him. Secretly hoped their mother would fall for him, too. What happens when she did? He leaves, just like their real dad. Guess who they're going to blame, and twice? Not you, Erroll Flynn."

Thunder rumbled, as the summer storm threatening the coast made good on its heavy promise. A gust of wind hit the house with enough force to bang shutters, upstairs. Rain lashed the house right behind it, followed by a lone tear from the ghost's eye.

"You've got some real, unfinished business on your plate this time, mister, and that's all I've got to say." Martha's coffee cup rattled noisily as she sat it cockeyed on the counter. The spoon clattered noisily into the sink. Martha stared out the kitchen window.

"She was so happy, you know? Mrs. Muir loved – loves Schooner Bay, loves Gull Cottage and absolutely adores you. I'm not blind, just because I dusty your moldy old furniture for a living. There's no doubt she's an independent, strong-willed woman. Very competent, very successful in a man's world. Undaunted. I hope to God at least you haven't taken that from her. Shaken her confidence so profoundly that she stays in Philadelphia, holed up with her rich parents. And it won't be long before the Muirs get their hands on that boy. Mark my words."

Martha shook her head, and turned to face the ghost. He was gone. Vanished, into thin air – literally, Martha thought, disgusted.

Behind the Captain's chair, she saw Mrs. Muir's favorite beige purse sitting forlornly on the windowsill. With the exception of flowers the young widow had cut in the garden yesterday, the Coach bag was one of the few signs of 1970s feminine sensibility anywhere in the house.

One so alive, bright, beautiful and evanescent doesn't need objects to clarify and define her existence, Martha thought. Even in her bedroom, the lingering scent of perfume and several rouge pots were the only signs of her passage there. The real spirit had left the house.

She stripped the sheets from Mrs. Muir's bed, wondering exactly just how far the Captain's sense of honor really extended.


	4. Chapter 4

"A meeting," Carolyn explained patiently. "The editors want me in Boston by tomorrow afternoon. It's a follow-up to a pitch letter I sent last month about writing an article featuring Maine's first woman legislator. She'll be sworn in late next month."

Her mother was skeptical. "How did they find you here?"

"Martha took the call, and gave them your number," Carolyn continued, nonplussed. "Yes, I'm paying her to watch the house. She hardly wants to fly to Florida in July. And Gull Cottage is her home, too. I think she's even got a crush on a certain Mr. Peavey -"

Emily Williams listened carefully as she mixed them each another gin and tonic, adding ice cubes at her daughter's request.

"Are you sure, Carolyn?" she finally interrupted. "Two days ago, you couldn't live without some New York lawyer summering in Maine and now it's as if you've flipped a switch and fallen right back in that awful working-woman role you seem to prefer over marriage and real happiness."

Carolyn swung her leg casually, over the arm of the pool chair, balancing her shoe on her big toe. The last time she and her mother had agreed on anything, it was about which brand of Kotex to buy when Carolyn turned fourteen.

"I'm sorry for blowing in here like an overwrought teenager. All of a sudden, Maine just seemed –"

"—I know, too provincial, too, well, summery."

"Exactly," Carolyn sighed, relieved. Her mother never disappointed when it came to drawing the exactly wrong conclusions at the most convenient times.

"You know, mother, maybe I'm just not ready for another man, yet. Right now, flying to Boston to sit in a conference room with two old editorial maids and a Boston Brahmin publisher sounds pretty good – and potentially lucrative. I know the kids will be disappointed, but if you could drive them to summer camp on Friday, I can leave for Boston and not worry about an afternoon meeting stretching into dinner."

Jonathan and Candy were spying. She could see them just behind the tea service, and surprised herself by winking at them.


	5. Chapter 5

New England. She wasn't home yet, but she was safe from the predations of the past.

Carolyn shifted the station wagon in gear and pointed its not insubstantial hood northward, away from Logan Airport, toward Maine and Route 1, the old Coach Road. Relief at being gone from Philadelphia, her parents, the old Carolyn, grew with every mile.

"I think you know where I'm really headed," she whispered into Candy's and Jonathan's ears as she hugged them earlier, leaving for the airport. "I need this time to make things right with Capt. Gregg."

"Gee, Mom, now we can have fun at camp!" Jonathan exclaimed, wiping lipstick from his cheek.

"Jonathan!" his grandmother admonished. "Kissing your mother is not something to joke about."

Candy smiled incredulously at her mother. She embraced her again, thrilled to be part of such a grand conspiracy - getting Captain Gregg back and getting rid of her grandmother at the same time. She hoped there would be some cute boys at camp.

Carolyn felt like a native as she crossed the border into Maine. I'm going home. It took another hour to wind her way up the coast to Schooner Bay. Carolyn sped by the cutoff for Gregg Road, headed straight for Main St. and a certain realtor's office.

"Mrs. Muir?" Claymore was stunned. "We didn't think – I mean, Peavey said Martha didn't think, we didn't know, if you would even be back before August. Sit down, please, sit down. Let me get you some coffee. From next door. Can I borrow a quarter?"

"Claymore, relax," she smiled, patting Claymore's hands as he nervously shuffled papers on the desk. "I'm here to pay the rent and give. . . you even more money."

Carolyn beamed, as broadly as possible. "You know that little summer cottage north of Schooner Bay, the one whose renters left without warning earlier this week? I'll take it. Through September." She reached into handbag and pulled out a checkbook.

"How much?"

Claymore's mouth opened and closed. He nervously stayed her hand. "You can't have it."

She sat back in her chair and raised her eyebrows calmly, quizzically. "Because you're worried, I suppose, I might not renew my least at –"

"If Old Spookface finds out I rented you another place to live, I mean, Mrs. Muir, honestly, well, I'm not blind." Claymore lowered his voice and held his hand to his mouth. "The uuuhhhmmm, uuhhmm, ghost had something to do with your leaving Gull Cottage in the middle of the night, didn't he? There's been bad weather up there all week. Peavey won't even drive up there. I remind you, Mrs. Muir, I rented you Gull Cottage as-is. Ghostie and all…"

"Well, he hasn't seen anything yet," Carolyn interrupted sweetly, if firmly. "I'll pay you $100 over your asking price. $120 if you tell Peavey you can't believe I've just leased the Smythe cottage. It is still furnished, isn't it?"

"How about $130 since you're making so much money now you can afford to rent two –"

She sat in car and waited a minute before steering up Main Road, toward Schooner Avenue. Ed Peavey's horseface lit up with astonishment as she sped by the handyman's shop.

Just north of town, she checked her rearview mirror. Sure enough, Peavey's old pick-up was lumbering south, making a beeline for Gregg Road.

Gossip trumps fear every time, Carolyn thought as she pulled into the driveway of her new home. How did Claymore know so much? Had Martha finally confided in Ed?

Smythe cottage was little more than a 1920s-style bungalow with vintage Sears furniture and absolutely no charm. Only an ocean view. Still, as Carolyn stepped outside, onto the boxy square porch that faced the Atlantic, she felt for the first time something greater than a pang of longing for Captain Gregg, something other than her immediate her desire to turn around and flee to Gull Cottage. She stared at the choppy grey sea she had dreamt of all her life. The gravelly beach she had trod countless times, with and without the ghost. And the air – the tar pitch smell of pines mingling with the lung-swelling dampness of briny eternity –she knew she was home, with or without him.

Lost in thought, she didn't feel the sudden shimmer of air behind her, only an unexpected tug at her already battered heart. Reflexively, she turned.

"How dare you," she managed to choke out as she teared up, wavering between forgiveness and wrath as he pulled her to him. "You are the most arrogant, most conceited, most self-centered man I have ever known. I only came back because you broke the kids' hearts, too."

She waited for righteous indignation and well-deserved anger to rise to the surface and bury him once, and for all, in a well-earned resting place in her own mind. He'd turned her dream into a nightmare, after all, waiting until she slept in his arms to suggest he'd never even existed. And now he was strangely silent. His pea coat scratched her face until he raised her chin and waited for her to meet his gaze.

"Go head and vanquish me," she whispered through her tears. "Exorcise yourself from my mind."

Instead, he kissed her softly and when she pulled away, gasping for air he didn't need, they were in the Master Cabin. The patio doors were open and the afternoon breeze filled the room with the same piney/briny odor she'd smelled at Smythe cottage. Only here also wafted the solid smell of well-tended wooden furniture and meatloaf cooking in the galley below.

"You are so lovely, so soft, so beautiful," he murmured as he stroked her cheek with his calloused thumb.

They swayed slowly by the telescope, like teenagers slow-dancing at Schooner Bay High, clinging to the promise of the other so tightly that when Captain Gregg finally released her, Carolyn Muir knew it was only temporary.


	6. Chapter 6

Martha clanked the coffee pot down loudly. The old stove groaned in response, and the housekeeper kicked it sharply on the leg.

"That's the next thing that's going to go, dear," she advised Mrs. Muir. Her employer sat at the table, au natural in yellow robe and tousled hair. Eyeliner and exhaustion were not flattering in the pale morning light filtering reluctantly through the kitchen window.

"Too early, Martha," Carolyn yawned, barely bothering to cover her mouth with her hand. "I'm still in a stupor, if you don't mind. And no, for the record, we didn't. To my knowledge, he spent the night wherever it is ghosts go when their humans vanquish them from memory."

Captain Gregg materialized, as if on cue. An immediate rebuttal to this last statement sat, fatefully formed on his lips, but glares from Martha and Carolyn kept his uninvited wisdom in abeyance. He closed his mouth, straightened to full nautical stance, and nonchalantly poured a cup of coffee. Both women stared at him. He added two sugars and cream, to buy time, stirring them diligently.

"May I join you?" the Captain asked as he winced at the stoutness of Martha's morning brew.

"No." Their reply was simultaneous. If he'd been human, he might have inadvertently spat coffee from his mouth at the very preposterousness of such a response. The ghost waited expectantly for the two to laugh at the silliness of such an idea. They ignored him.

"Well, I don't care where he spent the night but if you think I'm going to stay here, with Ed, with him around while you abscond to Smythe Cottage just to teach him a lesson, then you do have a lot of waking up to do," Martha continued, as if Daniel Gregg really were dead.

To them both.

"Martha, the only reason I spent the night here – with Ed, you said?"

Martha blushed. Carolyn was the one who straightened now. She grabbed Martha's left hand from behind the Blue Willow cup.

"Married?" Martha extended her ring finger, as if the Sears diamond chip was the most precious gemstone either had ever seen. Even the affronted Captain Gregg was caught off guard. His eyes met Carolyn's as they hugged Martha simultaneously, unexpectedly.

"When?" Carolyn broke the look brusquely, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. "Martha! Why? How? So soon?"

Martha chuckled. "Dear, those were the very questions I intended to ask you about him!"

Blast them! With one impersonal pronoun, he'd been relegated to invisibility.

"Isn't that what you wanted, Captain Gregg? To be invisible?" Carolyn swallowed her rising indignation, regretting her comment instantly.

"Who cares, Mrs. Muir! Who cares! I've married a man who very much wants to be a part of my life, and your family's, too. We got married yesterday morning. Claymore did it."

"So that's why he hung on every word I had to say yesterday," Carolyn replied.

"Ed rented Smythe Cottage for our honeymoon. You know, we can't afford much. Claymore was horrified when you came in and demanded to have it for two months, but I swore Captain Gregg to secrecy and Claymore was petrified about giving anything away."

Carolyn shrank, visibly. "I see." I knew it. There is always a catch with him, she thought. Yesterday afternoon was just a ploy.

The Captain stiffened and placed his coffee cup rather abruptly on the counter.

"Madame, if I infer correctly –"

But Madame already had risen from the table. "Of course, Martha. It all makes sense! Allow me to get dressed and we'll be off to lunch in Portland."

Too far for the Captain to follow, she thought as she brushed right past his wavering form.

Rested, she no longer felt weak and vulnerable. If he wanted her back, he was going to pay. The kids were at camp for two weeks – enough time for Martha and Ed to honeymoon in much-deserved privacy and plenty of time for the Captain to decide whether she or his misguided self-effacement would rule his heart.


	7. Chapter 7

The Captain sat in the parlor, staring at the fire he'd lit with a blink of his eyes. The flames popped and sparked emphatically, quite to his liking, just as they had over 100 years ago, when he was alive and had to fetch logs from the woodpile.

"After the first death, there is no other," Mrs. Muir told him after she returned from dinner in Portland with Martha that first night, eyes blazing as she quoted the last line of a poem by a writer named Dylan Thomas. What did she bloody damn mean by that?

She hadn't spoken to him since, spending her days in surrounding towns far from Gull Cottage – research, he hoped - and nights in the master cabin, where she'd made very clear he no longer was welcome. The intimacy of the first day of her return was gone, erased in the aftermath of her wrath over Martha's honeymoon accommodations. At least she's here, sleeping in my bed, he reminded himself gratefully yet with growing frustration.

His thoughts wandered back two months, to where the whole mess began. Captain Gregg would always be indebted to the freshly scrubbed Tim Seagirt and the doggerel he, the Captain penned for the musician to sing to Mrs. Muir that wonderful May evening. "Beautiful," she called the song, "secretly thrilled," she admitted later, by this first, tacit admission of love.

Later that evening, after Jonathan and Candy were abed, she invited him for, what else? A moonlit walk on the beach. "If only you could touch my hand, the way you pick up Scruffy and, the way you throw Claymore out the door…my lips could surely touch yours," she sang to Seagirt's melody. "It only took a year for you, to work up nerve to love me too…" Then she cheekily grabbed his hand, walking backwards, laughing at him, singing "da, da, da, da dump ti da," until he pulled her toward him and they stopped, unsure of what to do next.

"I've waited so long for this, for a moment that's not an if-only in a dream" she told him simply, her voice trembling with fervor and love he had not known in his lifetime nor she in hers.

"I spend the night in a chair, thinking she'll be there but she never comes." He rose to physically stir the fire, remembering Seagirt's other song, the one he hadn't written. "And I rise, to spend another day...Without her..."

And he was seized by a sorrow so profound he understood finally, with terrible surety, the meaning of the Welshman's words and he cried for the first time since 1869.


	8. Chapter 8

Jonathan wrinkled his nose and leaned back onto his elbows, sinking even further into the grass. The sun hurt his eyes but it also was making him sleepy.

"Captain Gregg couldn't come even if he and Mom weren't fighting," he speculated.

"Who cares, Jonathan?" Candy searched morosely for four-leaf clovers. "We don't want Mom here anyway because if she was it would mean we have to live with Grandma."

Why do I always have to deal with him? He's such a whiney baby.

They sat apart from other campers scrambling madly over moms and dads, all part of Camp Winthrop's Parents' Day. The little grove behind the picnic area hid them from counselors and other unwanted intruders. No one had missed them so far. They were relieved they wouldn't have to feign happiness just to look like normal kids. Still, the Muirs felt triply orphaned and even more bereft than they had when their grandmother dumped them off in West Virginia.

"It sure would be nice if people thought we had a Dad so they didn't have to pretend to be sorry for us, Candy."

"They feel sorry for Mom, not us, because she doesn't have a husband, his sister replied reasonably.

Jonathan closed his eyes, folding his hands behind his head. The reassuring sound of grown-up voices mixing with the shriller sounds of happy campers lulled his mind.

I want to sleep but I can't otherwise Candy might side against the Captain because she's a girl.

"That's because they don't know Captain Gregg's taking care of us and her, too," he murmured helpfully, fighting to stay awake.

Candy rolled over and jabbed her brother sharply in the stomach. "Wake up! I don't want to be out here all alone, thinking by myself. I brought us some cookies, anyways."

Jonathan wolfed them down then drank all of the lemonade they'd hidden in a thermos under a rock yesterday. He burped and blew it on Candy. She hit him mostly because she knew he expected it and because he would pass gas if she didn't pay attention to him.

Jonathan lay back in the grass, rolled over on his side and farted gustatorially.

"The new word for that kind of behavior is gross," Candy said crossly, moving away from him.

"Is not. It's groovy!" Jonathan laughed. "And that's what the kids say about Mom, too. She's groovy because their parents say she's hot! What does that mean, Candy? Mom isn't hot. Moms can't be because they're moms."

"You're such a baby, Jonathan. Mom's beautiful and everyone in Schooner Bay thinks so, too. Only they think she's stuck up because she won't date anyone around town."

Jonathan sat up. "Captain Gregg says a thing of beauty is a joy forever. He was talking about mom, I think."

Candy looked thoughtfully at Jonathan. For the first time, it occurred to he might be a human being instead of just a nuisance.

"If I tell you something, will you swear to keep it a secret?" She blinked solemnly. Betraying her mother was not something Candy took lightly. "Because if you don't I'll tell Grandpa Muir you want to go to Dexter Academy no matter what happens."

Jonathan's stared incredulously at Candy. "If you do, I'll tell all of the boys you play with that you want to kiss them!"

"Like they would believe anything you say, little brat. Jonathan, listen. I think I know why Mom really dumped the Captain."

"The rabbit died."


	9. Chapter 9

Carolyn trod softly down the drafty stairs, careful to lift the folds of her robe and nightgown ahead of her slippered feet. She paused to read the barometer that predicted spectral weather. Cloudy.

At the foot, she stopped. Faintly, she heard the clinking of glassware over the crackling fire. Soda, or the Captain? She wavered, then turned hesitantly toward the parlor. He stood, framed by the hearth, scotch in hand, reading the note she'd deliberately left on the couch.

"Captain?" He turned.

"You left this for me?" He folded the paper in half. "I trust you don't think I was, as Jonathan would say, snooping?" There was no arrogance in his tone. Just quiet resignation. "Did you write this, Madame?"

She raised her chin, intending to send him a scathing look. Instead, annoyed, she found herself blinking back a sudden rush of moisture in her eyes.

"No, a friend of my mother's did. I copied it. She is, was, a writer, Vera Brittain, who lost both her fiancée and her brother in World War II. I ran across a mimeograph of her letter in the archives in the Bangor library."

Carolyn took a deep breath. "If you want to read it to me - I've missed the sound of your voice."

He nodded casually, trying not to read too much into her comment. Carolyn sat primly on the edge of the sofa, and pulled her robe closer around her neck. The sudden surge of emotion was unexpected. He'd torn up her life, yet here she sat, glad for this unforeseen opportunity to engage him in conversation.

Unbidden, Captain Gregg selected one of his Waterford crystal wine glasses – her little table-bar was woefully inadequate – and poured a Cognac.

"This will warm you, Madame. It's rather chilly for a mid-summer's eve."

Their fingers touched briefly as he handed her the drink. She raised her eyes to his, mere inches from hers. Carolyn saw pain flash briefly there, before he recovered and moved to the hearth, resting an elbow on the mantle.

He cleared his throat, and began: "The two of them seemed to fuse in my mind into a kind of composite lost companion, an elusive ghost which embodied all comradeship, all joy, which included everything that was the past and should have been the future. Incessantly, I tramped across the Hill, subconsciously pursuing this symbolic figure like a lost spirit seeking for its mate."

Captain Gregg carefully placed the note under Jonathan's ship-in-a-bottle and seated himself stiffly on the couch beside her. Carolyn played nervously with her glass, swirling the golden liquor so that it splintered into a thousand splintered flames, each reflecting and accentuating her features. The Captain was besotted.

"I told the children I was coming here to make things right between us. They love you almost as much as I do. Perhaps you will visit us when we move to Smythe cottage?"

She couldn't look him in the eye. Outside, the wind picked up and she imagined the clouds predicted by the always-prescient barometer scudding in off the gray Atlantic.

Without warning, the tears began again. He grew agitated, suddenly unsure of himself.

He held a cocktail napkin to her nose. "Blow," he suggested, flummoxed yet afraid to pull her into his arms like he wanted to.

She obliged, shakily, then: "You haven't asked me why I left the Vera Brittain note on the divan." He raised his eyebrows.

"Because we are both lost spirits, my dear?"

She reached for his hand and nodded, unable to speak at first or even acknowledge how close she was to sobbing outright.

"I thought you were that mate – and then you tried to abandon us. I ran home, to Philadelphia, to give myself time to think, but I can't think without you anymore, Daniel. I can only feel irreparable loss. I suppose 'embody' is a strange word to use to describe what you mean to me, to the kids, but you do embody everything we need, everything we lack, everything we love.

"Would you really leave us, just like that, erasing yourself from our minds …" she stood, embarrassed. She couldn't finish the sentence. Suddenly, the room seemed too hot. The belt on her robe cut too tightly into her waist. The Cognac. She felt sick, and remembered for the first time she'd come downstairs to retrieve a 7-Up from the refrigerator, not to make peace with Captain Gregg.

He caught her as she fell.


	10. Chapter 10

"What are you saying, Ed? That you wouldn't have married me if you knew for sure? There've been rumors about that house since before you were even born. Don't make me regret the day I baked my first cherry pie for you!"

Martha was angry, but she also was insecure enough to cut another piece of pie for her homely husband and squeeze his shoulder reassuringly even though she felt like dumping the whole desert in his lap.

"Maybe I'd of married you, maybe not," Ed replied seriously, although he threw in a smile and a wink so Martha couldn't be for sure, either. "Still, there've been an awful lot of scary stories about things that go on up there. Now the whole town's been talking about other stuff that might be happening since pretty little Mrs. Muir moved to Gull Cottage and things suuuuuure got a lot quieter!"

"Ed Peevey! I've lived in that house every night Mrs. Muir has and I can absolutely assure you that Mrs. Muir is first and foremost a lady and that Capt. Daniel Gregg – old seadog he may be – is a gentleman. And, well, a ghost! Ghosts can't touch people."

Ed raised an eyebrow and another forkful of cherry pie to his lips. Martha loved the way he chewed each bite slowly and thoughtfully as though he were admiring a perfectly planed plank at one of his handyman jobs. "Well, Martha, I guess it's all right just as long as we're in Schooner Bay by dark. That old ghost has been scaring us townfolk for years, and I don't 'spect even Mrs. Muir can change that in just 11 months. Even if they could, well, you know. . . hug each other."

Martha wisely decided to end the conversation and snatched the fork from Ed's mouth before he could set it down on the empty plate. She gathered dishes in the small sink – blast Claymore for being so cheap with this cute little house – and began scraping away at the skillet.

She actually had a pretty damned good idea of what was going on in Gull Cottage. But Mrs. Muir deserved her happiness no matter what anyone else thought. She was a beautiful woman who hadn't been with a man almost since Jonathan was born – or, with a man ever, really, if you considered whom she'd married.

Her employer was so smitten with the Captain that even the kids noticed their mom's gradual shift from thick, terrycloth robes to Vanity Fair polyester then onto beautiful silk negligees and satiny robes that transmogrified the petite blonde from trendy mother into Grecian goddess.

Jonathan and Candy glanced sideways at each other and grinned each time their mother's hands shook when she poured coffee for the Captain. No, Martha thought, you didn't need Mrs. Muir's college degree to figure out a spirit who could touch porcelain teacups surely could caress a teary cheek or kiss willing lips.

Martha was pretty certain Mrs. Muir and the Captain hadn't tried anything funny until sometime over the summer, after that guitar-player sang a song the ghost wrote. Seemed like Mrs. Muir couldn't believe her ears when Daniel Gregg had the hippie sing about touching hands and shorebirds something-or-other.

Come to think of it, that's exactly when the fun-and-games started. Mrs. Muir got up much earlier to bathe each morning, instead of coming downstairs in one of her slinky robes. The sheets seemed more tussled and Daniel Gregg wholly much more agreeable.

The kids seemed delighted with the happier version of their mom and thrilled the Captain was so interwoven into their incomplete family they would never have to worry about having a dad again.

Until Daniel Gregg decided to unravel it all, without consulting anyone.

"Martha? You've been standing at that sink, staring out the window for almost five minutes now. Make us some coffee and we'll go hold hands on the deck then give those old snoopy Schooner Bay Baptist ladies something they'll remember for a very long time!"

"Well, no place is private around here, that's for sure." Martha puckered her lips. Ed pursed his. He hugged her and gave her a quick slap on the bottom before proudly strolling out on the deck like a proud peacock, hoping the entire village indeed had their spy glasses focused on Claymore's vacation cottage. Secretly, Ed knew his new association with the suspicious Gull Cottage would enhance his stature in the community. Unfortunately, he also knew it could end his marriage if he so much as uttered a word about what he saw and heard up there.

Ed had heard plenty of comments about Mrs. Muir in town, where she was still regarded as an interloper who needed to move back to Philadelphia. Too pretty, too smart, too independent, and too much competition for the wives. Yesiree, the village men would be pumping him for all kinds of information about the secret life of the widow. The menfolk might fear Captain Gregg, but they had to really admire a ghost who could keep a woman like Carolyn Muir happy in Schooner Bay.


	11. Chapter 11

Dr. Ferguson banged the knocker loudly and glanced nervously around.

Showing up at Gull Cottage – even for an emergency – sorely tried his commitment to the Hippocratic oath. "It's haunted," the town librarian warned matter-of-factly during his yearly physical. "Of course, I don't believe in ghosts. But most folks sure wouldn't be caught there dead – I mean, dead or alive, after dark. Kind of spooky up on the cliff. Lots of strange weather. Thunder and lightning when the sun's shining down here. They say it's 'him.'"

The young doctor squared his shoulders. A rocking chair stirred in the ocean breeze. Without warning the door flew open. Startled, Dr. Ferguson took a step back, dropping his medical bag in the process. A tall man wearing a gray turtleneck wasted no time picking it up. "Hurry, lad," he demanded in the most sonorous yet authoritative voice Dr. Ferguson had ever heard. "I'm Daniel Gregg, Claymore's cousin from England. Mrs. Muir's upstairs."

Dr. Ferguson eyes widened but he said nothing as he hustled up the broad staircase. He'd been here before, once, to treat Mrs. Muir for Virus X. Before he knew about the stories.

Mr. Gregg bounded noiselessly up the stairs before him then turned, impatiently at the landing.

"Blast it man," he called before continuing. "She's bleeding."

Dr. Ferguson forgot all about ghosts. Daniel Gregg stood by Mrs. Muir's bedside, staring at the woman with a panic-stricken gaze men usually reserved for childbirth. Mrs. Muir was doubled over in pain. The sheets beneath her were bright red.

"We don't have time to call an ambulance," Dr. Ferguson announced urgently after feeling her pulse. "We've got to get this bleeding stopped immediately. Cover her with a blanket and pick her up. I'll drive."

"No."

"Excuse me?"

"We'll meet you at the hospital." The tall, bearded man stooped over the bed and gently picked up the stricken woman, pausing only to kiss her forehead. Daniel Gregg stared at the doctor. "If you ever tell anyone what you're about to see, I will haunt you to your grave."

"I'm her doctor and you – "

They vanished, into thin air. Momentarily stunned, Dr. Ferguson stared at the blood-soaked bed then raced to the desk for the telephone.

"Emergency? One of my patients should be arriving – I beg your pardon? Yes, that's her. Them. Admit her immediately and prep her for surgery. Tell Dr. Rogers to proceed without me. It should take me no more than 20 minutes to get to Portland."

He paused for a split second then placed another call.

"Claymore? Claymore? Get out of bed. Your great uncle just introduced himself to me. Listen. Calm down and listen. No, he didn't hurt me. Drive over to Smythe Cottage and get Martha. Bring her to Portland General, immediately. Mrs. Muir's very ill and we're going to need her help. No he didn't throw me out of the house. Be quiet. Get Martha. I'll explain everything later."

Instantly, she was wide-awake.

"Where are we, Captain?" The room was white and unfamiliar. Sheer curtains billowed on the strong sea breeze. Outside it was warm – not too warm – and sunny. Mrs. Muir sat up. Captain Gregg stood by the bed and she took his hand in hers.

"We're not mad at each other anymore, are we?" Somehow she knew. Things were right again between them. The Captain sat gently on the edge of the bed and caressed her face lightly with the back of his other hand.

"No, my darling, but you're very sick." Carolyn stared, then smiled. "If you insist, but I feel wonderful. Amazingly well. So fine, in fact –"

The Captain laid his finger on her lips then kissed them, gently. She was stirred to the core. "I've missed you, Daniel, so much. I can forgive you for what you tried to do, I can. I left because of the baby, because I realized I would never know, now, whether you would come back for the child's sake or come back for me, to me only. Not for any other reason. Not even Jonathan and Candy."

The Captain smiled sadly. "Silly love. If you don't know how much I love you by now I will have to spend the rest of your life showing you." Her eyes were enchanting, he noticed. Her smile seemed wider than ever before. His heart broke into small pieces.

"It's very strange. I don't remember telling you about the baby. I was going to. Then you tried to give me that horrible dream only I awakened because I felt sick, like I was going to throw up again – and all of a sudden I wondered if you knew, that you were really giving me the dream because you wanted me to leave because –"

"M'dear." He pulled her towards him and embraced her tightly. Carolyn was so happy to have his arms around her, protecting yet arousing her at the same time that she buried her face in his neck that she surrendered, for the first time in over a week. Nothing else mattered.

"Marry me when this is over." The Captain lowered her back onto the bed and kissed her forehead. "Close your eyes and rest."

She reached for him, smiling and nodding at the very idea of something so natural, of being so completed and happy, but it was Martha who grasped her hand. "Lie still, dear. Everything's going to be all right. The surgery went just fine. You made it through beautifully. Go back to sleep. The nurse just gave you another shot of morphine, for the pain. We'll all be here when you wake up."

Enveloped in burning warmth, Carolyn vaguely heard Dr. Ferguson talking to someone. "We almost lost her, Mrs. Williams, but that cousin of Claymore's – the lawyer fellow – he found her and got her to the hospital just in time."

Carolyn had no idea who they were talking about. She nestled her head on the Captain's broad chest, her arms around his neck, the sound of the ocean roaring around them. "Sleep," he whispered in her ear.


	12. Chapter 12

"How funny that I can't remember most of what happened that night," Carolyn sighed to no one in particular. The waves, the starched white curtains flapping in the breeze, the gently creaking Captain's wheel outside her window – they remembered, but mutely, despite their gentle ministrations to her ears.

"Except you," she mused to the binnacle as she spun it lightly with her fingers. "And the white beach. Funny, but I remember everything that happened after I passed out."

Mrs. Muir smiled ruefully before the pain in her side gently reminded her it was time to return to bed. Sneaking to the bathroom without Martha's permission would not hasten her recovery.

"The blasted telescope is not my blasted surrogate, Madame," his voice more than a whisper.

"I must be getting better if you're amping up the volume, Captain Gregg." And she giggled for the first time in months. "That hurt! Besides, as I do recall, the telescope was bright and shiny – Bristol fashion, I believe you'd say – and, uh, fully well, you know, that first time I entered your cabin. Say again about your blasted surrogate?"

Daniel Gregg materialized just in time to fluff her pillow.

"Would you have preferred the panic of the emergency room and that incompetent peep to mental solitude and quiet, meaningful conversation with me?" She winced gratefully as his hands relieved the stress on her abdomen by lowering her head to the covers.

"No, Daniel." She smiled, her lips curling piquantly upwards, he thought, his heart breaking once again. "And I know we didn't have a baby. How could we?"

"In my day, m'dear, no one ever heard of a blasted ovarian cyst." He pulled on his ear, an endearing, if annoying habit.

"Nor of the lifesaving surgery Dr. Ferguson performed," she reminded him gently. "Or modern anesthesia. I don't think the children could handle two spectral parents."

Capt. Gregg sat beside her on the bed. He lifted her hand and kissed its palm gently. "Fortunately, only Dr. Ferguson knows of my present-day concern in your welfare."

"Was it, Captain? The beach, our conversation about why I left? Or was it but another of your illusions, intrusions into my mind?" Carolyn sought his eyes with hers. "Was it both our worlds, really?"

"I promised, m'dear, never to invade your thoughts with mine again. Yours, there in the hospital, sought mine. You took us away from the reality of that horrible night."

It sounds so cut-and-dried in ordinary time, she thought.

She found her voice again – hard to do, when thinking of things better left to thought – and it was unsteady.

"I lied, even there on the beach of our own making. I left because you hurt me, because I thought I was pregnant, because I wanted to hurt you, too, and then it became about the baby…I thought I was pregnant, I really did," Carolyn finished finally. "Begrudging us both the one thing we would have wanted most for each other in life –"

"Belay that, Mrs. Muir." It was a command, but whispered so gently for a moment she might have confused it with profound love. Or, was it both?

"I believe, your feminine contrariness to the contrary, we still have two children to raise and a life, so to speak, to pursue – all of it."


End file.
